Samurai: An ancient warrior code of strength, honor, and loyalty. ***
Samurai Teaching: Having the STRENGTH to passionately believe in every student; the HONOR to teach them in the way they best learn; and the LOYALTY to never give up on any of them. ***
Sensational Living: How sensationally we do this for them now determines how well they will be able to sensationally do this for themselves and for others as adults.

2008-04-27

I was reading the following story about the oldest woman alive to Grandma Bette just now, waking her up because the time change is still throwing me off. She's OK with me waking her up, telling me she looks forward to my calls.

Only a few years ago she was telling me she didn't know why she was still around. Now she happily retells how others tell her she is so blessed to have her children and grandchildren calling her all the time.

*The attention has given her reason to live.

The love I have for her is my motivation for creating the wealth to own a helicopter so I can visit her more often. She and I have named it, "The Bette". A pursuit of any goal, created from a place of great love, allows for great confidence in its manifestation.

The simple goal of wanting to stay alive is entirely possible, if given enough attention.

Jeanne Louise Calment, who died at 122 years and 164 days of age, lived to be the oldest person on record. Though her parents and siblings also lived to an advanced age, she outlived them all. An active woman, Calment continued to ride a bicycle until she was 100 years old and lived independently until she was nearly 110. At 114, she became the world's oldest actress, appearing as herself in the family film Vincent and Me.

Jeanne Calment's remarkable health presaged her later record. At age 85, she took up fencing. At 100, she was still riding a bicycle. Jeanne lived on her own until shortly before her 110th birthday, when her cooking caused an accidental fire in her apartment and it was decided that she needed to be moved to a nursing home. However, Jeanne was still in good shape, and was able to walk until a fall at age 114 years and 11 months.

Jeanne survived a hip operation in January 1990 to become the oldest verified surgery patient. Although she needed to use a wheelchair afterward, Jeanne remained talkative and received frequent visitors until her 122nd birthday, at which time it was finally decided that her health status had declined and warranted privacy.

Indeed, it was said by Jean-Marie Robine that this "allowed her to die", because the attention had kept her going.

Jeanne Calment died five months later. She reportedly attributed her longevity and relatively youthful appearance (for her age) to olive oil, which she said she poured on all her food and rubbed into her skin.[1]

She was the last recognized surviving person of the 1870s.

She was quoted as saying, "Ha, I was over the hill a hundred years ago".

Last night at a Hollywood party the stars I met were so down to earth, even playing ping pong with me in the basement of Tony's home, that I woke up more confident than ever that all of our limitations are entirely self-imposed.....And it being so terribly and tragically obvious how we limit ourselves so much every day.

Before talking to Grandma I had spent an hour texting a student from last year who is going through a very rough time and literally ready to give it all up.

*I'm hoping and believing that this positive attention will give him a reason to live, and live large! Live all the way! I learned to surf yesterday, the day after a shark killed a triathlete nearby.

The more I face my fears, the more I do in life, and the more I become full of life....perhaps even full enough to give to others and encourage them to keep on living......and living large!

I'm not going to wait around for death to find me, nor am I going to sit around while others are living a walking death or experiencing a hell on earth like the Bra Boys, who raise more hell because of it.

Went to see the movie this afternoon with my best buddy Bri with his girl Tempani, who is from Australia and lived in Maroubra where the movie takes place.

The tattoo Koby has across his upper chest, "My Brother's Keeper", came right through the screen and into me. We are all our brother's keeper. And when we don't take the time to pay attention to this, we all suffer from the effects sooner or later.Be they young or old, family or aquaintance, friend or even enemy.......and above all with ourselves; we have to keep each other alive, our hopes and dreams, higher standards for thinking and being.

In doing this for ourselves and each other, we keep the hopes and dreams of the world alive, and change the reality of the world.

Among the many incredible people I have met in the last few days (some pictured above like Tate Donovan, Steve Eckhodlt, Tony Horton) ...Scott Fifer has proven once again how powerful a dream in action is. After creating the Tunahaki project to help children in Africa who cannot yet help themselves, he is now working with Ewan McGregor on another project.

Don't tell me why things can't be changed for the better, I'm too busy throwing myself in an ocean of people who ARE busy changing things for the better. People who have the exact same number of hours in the day as we have, who live in the same ocean of possibilities we do, and who have exactly the same opportunities to give up and get off their boards.....but don't. Not even when life breaks their board with a devastating wave....they simply get a new one and head back out into the surf.....unafraid to learn from their mistakes and continue their learning of how to surf life's waves.

Are you seeing how simple it is to become successful, to achieve your dreams and make the world a better place? I do.....And I say let's do it together. Forget anybody who tells you you can't. Listen to those who tell you the truth, and that is you can.

2008-04-24

When a blind man carries a lame man, both go forward.- Swedish Proverb

I feel broken,I feel battered,I feel bruised

Yet I feel myself still moving forward,Willing to continue risking it all, Willing to give it all

For one thing......

Love

- Adam Stuart (April, 2008)

I was reminded today of just how far the students have come this year. It's ridiculous how much growth has occurred. And not just academically, but even more importantly, personally. They have more confidence in themselves than ever before, and they are approaching the point where they truly believe there is NOTHING they cannot do. .

But it's frustrating to see the Harleys, Jacobs and Coltons sitting right in front of me day after day, wanting to scream out to the world that it ISN'T me, it's what I'm doing that creates or recreates an individual that is full of life, full of smarts and full of hope. It's very simple, but it isn't easy, and maybe that's why the "good" teacher is so rare, when it should be the "bad" teacher that is rarely found, then let go and helped to find a different profession.

After all, who your child spends all day with has a pretty good chance of building them up or tearing them down.

And with the world being torn apart in so many ways, we need to graduate strong souls and bright minds to stop the destruction and courageously begin the rebuilding process.

(From my conversations with Harley, she and Amanda are so alike, both so very gifted, that it is a crime to teach these two in the limited traditional way)

Raymond, making a 100% improvement in reading on the county Edusoft test, is only one of two winners this year of the coveted Patty Boy Blemur Award. The other winner was James, who began the year as gifted. Raymond was not only held back a year, he had so many self-defeating habits of mind that his parents almost gave up on him this year and put him in a military-type school. He is proof, one more shining example that there's NO question that EVERY child can be reached, with enough love, patience and skill.

Riding home, I felt good, and began meditating with the sun and wind on my face. ("A warrior learns to meditate in each and every action." - Peaceful Warrior. I hope you're enjoying that book your mom gave you, Jacob).

But soon I began wondering about the ones who have experienced the same amazing success, but then fell through life's tragic cracks; where in the hell are Taneicea and Asia, and why isn't Patty Boy himself getting any better after while here in Orlando he went from going to die, to going to be in a coma forever, to ..... (fill in your own damn impossibility), surpassing all expectations, and now nothing?

Taneicea went from breaking down trying to speak in front of the class to doing extra projects just to practice speaking, and crying in frustration that she wouldn't be at our school anymore to be part of the upcoming speech contest. Instead of having to encourage her face her fears, I was strongly praising her for her courage to do so.

And the question of, "How far do you have to go?", began to burn in my brain again. Just a few years ago I was telling gang leaders to leave my kids alone. Make sure they get to school and give me just one year with them. And if at the end of that year they didn't feel they had better options, I would back off.

When push comes to shove, I will hug. Sometimes I'll hold on and hug so tightly I'll give myself a heart attack trying to wake love up. But when hugs don't work, when love is buried under layers and layers of hardened hate, I will shove so damn hard that either the hate will break or I'll break trying to break it.

I found out some of these students weren't even going home at night, and would be waiting for me at school the next morning, WANTING TO LEARN. I was given, and I quote, "The Worst of the Worst", the ones who "either couldn't learn or wouldn't". I ended up writing a book about their phenomenal growth and giving it to them as a gift at the end of the year.

I made the choice to completely believe in them from the beginning, and told them I wouldn't allow anything to stop them anymore; not themselves or any person in their world. In return they had to let me push them harder in the classroom than they had ever been before.

I promised them I was bigger, badder, meaner and tougher than anything or anybody trying to stop them, and if they were courageous enough to trust me and believe they shouldn't have to put up with certain things in their world, I would be courageous enough to protect them from it.

This is an example of what it looks like when we talk about word meaning. Can you imagine what it looks like when we talk about Dreaming and Doing Big?

One teacher and one parent CAN make a difference. Can you imagine what two, three, 100, 1000, 1 million can do?

So when I was told that my kids wouldn't be left alone, I told them I wouldn't leave them alone....And if a kid didn't show up for school, I was going to come after them that night, and any man who pointed a gun at me was going to get his head ripped from his body.

If they wanted to kill a teacher doing his job, then they were being nothing more than weak punks. But we didn't have to fight. "There's a better way, man. I may not know exactly what that is but I do know it's better than this. I know you're more than this. All I'm asking for is one year."

On my way home after school sometimes I would stop at a liquor store and buy my friend a drink.

"Often with the poorest people you cannot completely alleviate their problem but by being with them..."

- Brother Geoff

We would sit outside and talk, where I would meet ex-cons who had just got out. Since everyone knew Cue Ball, the nicest "bum" in the neighborhood, they would sit with us. They told me how they went to the same school, some even the same classroom, and wished they had had just one teacher believe in them as much as they could tell I believed in my students. They said that maybe they wouldn't have believed they had to do what they did that got them arrested.

What we believe to be true for us, becomes our wings of freedom or the chains of our prison.

On one of these days a car pulled up and the window went down half way. I thought, "Damn! This is it. The hell if I'm going to die sitting on my ass", and stood up. I know I can't beat a bullet, but I do remember staring at the window and silently shouting, "Come on! Here I am", hoping I could guess the timing of the shot and dive to my right or left.

Then I felt someone blocking my right. It was the ex-con who had been sitting with us. He was standing next to me, shoulder-to-shoulder, willing to risk his own life with mine, finally having the courage to stand up for what he felt was right.

It was one person wanting so much to give more, and another wishing so much he had been given more, standing up together to create this "more" in the world - Right Here! Right Now! - Right where they were.

WARNING: Language

After what seemed like a long time, the window finally went up and the car drove away.

I know I could get hurt doing what I do. I don't need you to tell me that, because I'll tell you the names of the innocent who ARE getting hurt. Don't tell me I could get killed because I can tell you the children who ARE getting killedevery day. Don't tell me to think of my children because, and this is to my children, you are what I am thinking about, with ALL of my heart!

My children are living in a world of violence and hate they will soon enter, perhaps my son next year in middle school. Right here, right now in Central Florida we have the MySpace Middle School Murder Plot (Morbid MySpace Page)

I will not sit on my butt doing nothing but complaining about it. By every god that has ever existed I will create a safer world for my son, even if it means fighting against the gods themselves and their "Thy will be done". Send me to hell, but I find it hard to believe any god would will a child into a hell on earth. I'm pretty sure it's a lack of will on the people around the child that allows this to happen.

An adult has a lot better chance of surviving trying to make this happen than a child does. We adults should be protecting every child's right to survive and thrive in the world. We do this by CREATING a BETTER WORLD for them and making them feel and be safe.

We are the trees they climb to see a better view of the world,The branches they play and grow on,And the trunk they hold onto during the storms

But when? When do we do this? Right Here! Right Now!

Because right here in our country we have: "It shouldn't take a school shooting or an inner-city neighborhood shooting to make us realize that American children are more at risk from firearms than the children of any other industrialized nation. In one year, firearms killed no children in Japan, 19 in Great Britain, 57 in Germany, 109 in France, 153 in Canada, and 5,285 in the United States." (Kids and Guns in America)

And right here in our world we have from London, England:

RHYS JONES, 11, was shot in the neck as he walked home from playing football

MICHAEL DOSUNMU, 15, was killed by two men with a machine-gun as he slept at his home

JONATHAN MATONDO, 16, was shot dead in a park near his home

JAMES ANDRE SMARTT-FORD, 16, from New Malden, Surrey, was gunned down at a busy ice rink

BILLY COX, 15, was shot dead on Valentine’s Day in his bedroom

KAMILAH PENISTON, 12, was accidentally shot by her brother Kasha, 17, as he “messed around” with a gun at their home

ADAM REGIS, 15, the nephew of Olympic athlete John Regis, was stabbed after a night out with his girlfriend

ABUKAR MAHAMUD, 16, was shot in the neck in July after being chased by a gang of youths on bicycles

PAUL ERHAHON, 14, died from a stab wound to the heart

MARTIN DINNEGAN, 14, was stabbed during a street brawl

DALE LITTLE, 15, was allegedly called a “chav” before being stabbed in the chest

So long as little children are allowed to suffer, there is no true love in this world.- Isadora Duncan (1878-1927)

Which makes me even angrier that any teacher, or any parent for that matter, would choose to take the easy route and NOT believe in and take the time to love the children life has put in their care. No it's not easy, but it's not as hard as we're making it on the kid's future by the beliefs we're putting into their heads.

And it's not complex. We're not asking them to face death. We're asking them to simply love, even if it's difficult, even when it hurts. Trust me, it's not going to kill you to give just a little more time and a little more love.

But then again, maybe these adults weren't loved enough, and don't see how it can be done. Maybe we're supposed to have the courage to believe we can all show how to do this by how we treat others every day.

I sought out the superintendent over Spring Break. People who had worked for years in the same building as him told me they had never met him when I asked where I could find him. They thought I was crazy.

The first thing I told him when I found him was that he was much nicer than I thought he would be. I didn't tell him that due to a screw up by "his" people I haven't been paid what I'm supposed to for the past five years. I'm too busy teaching to worry about whether I'm getting paid enough to do it. I'll take care of that later. I do feel the pains of lack, and it does hurt. Just today I found out my rent check bounced for the second time this month. Only by the generousity of a very giving person was I able to pay it.

But in spite of this I also feel like the poor man who opens his hand not to receive, but to give..........and I feel an abundance of greater treasures flowing into my life than money could ever possibly match.

So instead I told Mr. Blocker of the good things happening in his classrooms, and of the great things that could happen if we all worked together in courage versus fear. I felt like William Wallace trying to convince Robert the Bruce to lead Scotland to freedom, instead of letting it be ripped apart by those desperately trying to hold on to their titles.

The irony of this is that Robert the Bruce is my ancestor. I am not Braveheart. I am Adam. And you are You. Maybe I'm simply living the lessons my family learned from the real Braveheart 700 years ago. Maybe I'm learning the undeniable truth that we are all brave hearts.........if we have the strength to set our hearts free, and have the courage to follow them.

300 years after Wallace's death the Stuarts were asked to rule England as well as Scotland, creating Great Britain, which was great until the devastation of two world wars.

WARNING: I love this comedian and he only uses one swear word....But he uses it ALL THE TIME. So please don't play this within earshot of the children. They can hear it at school later...Just not at my school :-)

We have enough people who tell it like it is - Now we could use a few who tell it like it could be.

- Robert Orben

When the "what is" of my world gets too heavy, I need to focus on the "what could be" to help me get back up. Instead of thinking about and feeling how hard it is to live this way day after day, I choose to focus on the courage I feel in my heart, and hear the laughter coming from my lips, giving me renewed strength to see a world that is worth fighting for. And because I love my children so much, I'll continue fighting for the most right thing in this world, which is simply ....LOVE....

.....And going as far as I can in its name, which sometimes is as easy and simple as spending time with my daughter, noticing she has an eyelash on her cheek, and holding it while she blows on it and makes a wish.

She wouldn't tell me what she wished for, but I wished that I could live long enough to see a world filled with love for all people. I know I am in one when I'm with my children, and that I've created one in my classroom and home. I choose to believe it can be created in the rest of the world, and feel honored to be willing to die trying.

**Side note: Today as I was bringing my class outside, Bella's was coming in. She had just scraped her leg, and when I came over to ask what had happened, her lip quivered and she began crying. I carried her to the nurse's office and then up the stairs and into her classroom, never letting her go once.

As we were going up the stairs I asked her if it really was important to her that I teach at her school next year just so we could be together, even if it meant we would be poor for at least one more year. Would she rather have me make lots more money doing something else?

Her eyes, her smile, her face.......all telling me she wanted time with her father over all the gold in the world.

And with everything weighing down on her father's shoulders.......The stress of his world tearing him apart..........In his arms she became all the gold in the world to him......and it was the lightest, easiest, and most valuable thing he had ever carried.

I believe the only way I can feel such love and beauty is because I am willing to go through the times of feeling such hardship. What we all go through sometimes is very hard and hurts very much......And at these moments if we can somehow find the courage to keep thinking thoughts of what we want to see in the world....and find the strength to keep taking action towards creating it........That's the point at which the new world we want is manifested.

People can manifest shiny sports cars and open parking spaces for them.......I think I'll spend my life and time in this world manifesting love.

I'm going out of town for a week so I'm adding some uploaded videos before they get lost in my computer forever

2008-04-18

**I've added to this post from yesterday, after my principal showed a clip of a dying professor's "last lecture", which he dedicated to his children. An incredible person sent the same clip to me about a month ago. Being truly flattered, but not seeing myself as anywhere near this particular professor, I didn't make the connection.

Now I do, in that everything I write is my "last lecture" to my own children. The fact that it affects others is truly remarkable, and my children and I thank each and every one of you for your comments. I wouldn't be surprised after I'm gone if one of them contacts you and thanks you for something you said about what their father had written.

I don't know how, but I intend on writing even more. A student who you've been reading about all year, who has made "impossible" academic AND personal growth, overcoming fear after fear, is now out of school and living on the street....and can't be found.

...And I feel a great storm brewing inside of me. Knowing myself, I know what this means. And should every new write literally become my "last lecture" to my children, I want that one day they will see why I love them, and the world they live in, so very much.

I want them to see themselves how I see them, and I dedicate the song, "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel, every day to them for the rest of their lives.

Here's the original post from yesterday, with added photos, thoughts and videos at the end:

A very good friend of mine just posted this, and I not only dedicate this post to her, but to her ex husband too, as they go to court today to "fight" for their daughter:

MY EX OF SEVERAL YEARS IS TRYING TO GET CUSTODY OF MY KID NOW TO AVOID PAYING CHILD SUPPORT... THIS ONLY FURTHER PROVES THE OLD SAYING IS TRUE;

A student this week told me her father didn't want her. After asking questions, I found out she has never met her father. So I asked her if her father never met her, never took the time to get to know her, isn't the truth he just didn't want to be a father to anybody, and not that he didn't want her?

As men we have such GREAT strength inside of us, and IT'S NOT to use that strength to abuse, to fight against our children's mothers while they watch in the middle, or to give kids a name.....and then walk away.....because we don't feel we have the strength to man up to our responsibilities.

Because this is happening more and more, there's never been more of a need for each one of us to Be More of a Man. When we do, lives are restored and recreated. When we don't, lives are diminished and destroyed. Life itself is too precious to waste in any way. Being responsible for it wasting away in yourself and another you've given life to......is worse than a crime, greater than a sin, so much more than a tragedy.

From my experience as a single father, deeply feeling the pain of not waking up to my children everyday and putting them to bed every night, the hurt can be so great that it's easier to run away from this pain by running away from our children. And many men do....

But that is not the strength of a man. Our strength should be so great that is has to be controlled and guided by great love, and the love we have for our children being greater than all the pain we experience by their everyday loss.

And when we give until it hurts....

until we have no more left to give them....

they give it right back to us....

filling us with more to give to others

There is a way to help good men become good fathers again....Love overcoming pain is at least one of the ways back.......And if a man wants to be a "great lover", the best way to do this is by loving his children greatly....spending quality time with them and in their eyes, falling even more in love with them, and in their eyes, seeing the doorway to ia thousand churches.

Each child we bring into this world is truly unique and extremely special

In our strength to spend time with them we show them they're special enough to spend time with...and in their eyes the world is special and worth spending time in.

In our strength to overcome our pain of losing them, we show them how special and strong love is...and in their eyes the world is filled with love and worth filling it with love.

Our daughters will mother children, and our sons will become fathers....And they will live what we teach them...they will do what they learn from us.

As men, are we teaching our daughters what kind of man to look for....Our sons what kind of man to be?

I could be wrong, but love is the only thing I know, the greatest thing I feel, and the only thing I know to use to tell me how to parent, to teach, to write, to fight.....to live and to love.....and how to be a man.

Today, I pray my friend's ex has the strength as a father, to remember what is means to have strength as a man, and not to take love away from a mother, but to give love to his daughter, and do what's best for her.

ADDED PICTURES

Brosden feeling pretty cool with Dad's keys to the car

The "waitresses" arrive with our food.

Bella totally jacked about A-cing her spelling test with Dad before having to take it tomorrow in her class.

Brosden aced his on the drive up to get Sofia.

Trying to squeeze in some of my own study time...

While the boy of a thousand faces does his thing.

I have no idea where my children get their animation :-)

If you love someone you also show them respect. Last week at the pet store they all heard me say something. Brosden was the one who paid attention enough to hear what I said, which was "time to go". Out of appreciation he got to go in the store first this week.

When Sofia said she didn't hear what I said, I asked if she heard me say something. When she said yes, I told her it's my job to say it, it's her job to hear it. It's disrespectful to make someone repeat themselves, and knowing her father (interpersonal intelligence), he doesn't like to say things twice.

As you can see in the girls' happiness, they were still excited even though their brother got to go in first. All of us like it when people we love hold us to a higher standard. Children are just more OK with it than adults, I think because we feel we're supposed to be nearly flawless by the time we reach adulthood.

Who are you to tell me I have something to work on? What about you?

Oh you did not just go there!

....And one more once loving relationship bites the dust.....

But what if we, and the children who are watching us, can learn to become grateful for the opportunity to learn from our mistakes, and be thankful for those caring enough to point it out, whether or not it's pointed out in a caring way? Even your so-called "enemies" can help only make you better.

Great learning and growth can occur, including learning to be grateful for what you do get, versus the times you don't.

Real learning allows knowledge, such as respecting those you love, to be applied in the real world. This application of knowledge is called wisdom.

And when you're on the phone, (here with Great Grandma Bette), it's wise to stop what you're doing and give her your full attention, especially if your my child :-)...

....Or my student for that matter. My son calls me Beowulf when I get angry.

Bella has incredible creativity.

According to Bloom's Taxonomy of Thinking, the ability to evaluate and create are the highest forms of thinking.

If you or your child are creative, it is a scientifically-proven sign of higher thinking. Encourage it, nurture it, allow it to grow. One time when Bella kicked me off the computer last weekend, it was to surprise me with a story she posted on my Samurai Teaching website.

Science tells us that we use maybe 5% of our brains. This 9-year old is already writing and posting her own stories.

Brosden, who isn't into school or learning, and has been diagnosed with ADD, scores as high as any gifted kid when taught in a gifted, interesting way......WITHOUT having taken his medication.

If he wants to live large in this world, he's going to have to earn the right to do that by developing large skills and abilities. I told him at lunch I wanted to race horses on the beach with him. He told me he wanted to race jets in the sky.

Talk about Dreaming Big! I MUST talk to him about Doing Big to Become Big enough to achieve those big dreams. Very few of us do because of how we're spoken to...and then end up speaking to ourselves.

He doesn't take his medication when he's with me. His mother loves and believes in him, just as many teachers do for their students. I think my confidence that he can think and behave, and will, vibrates so strongly that he believes it too, and does, sans drugs. His last report card was all A's and B's. Not bad for a kid with ADD who doesn't like school, and proof that we're only really limited by our own thinking.

The question is, "What are we encouraging our children, as well as each other, to think?" (If he can figure out the change I should get, before or soon after the cashier does using the register, he gets to keep it for our trip to China. He asked if we could go one day. I said, "sure, as long as you can pay your half". He has become a high-level quick-thinking machine.

I don't care if he likes to learn. I care that he likes to think, and does. The cashier wanted to tell him the answer, which most of us do....we tell instead of allow (He will not let anyone tell him the answer. He wants to think of it for himself. The cashier)

And yesterday evening on our adventure walk, Sofia and I came upon a place where "dinosaurs used to live". She began asking questions ranging from, "What was the first dinosaur?", to "If there were dinosaurs, then humans..........what's going to come after us?"

And if you don't want your children to say, "I don't know" when asked questions, you better not either. You don't have to know all the answers, and instead of telling them the ones you do know, ask them what they think. Get them to think about their own thinking (meta cognition).

We just finished watching "Back at the Barnyard" on Nickelodeon. She wanted to watch Sponge Bob next. My house, my rules. For every one of your shows, you watch one of dad's. Put laughter in your heart and knowledge in your head.

Right now she's "oohing" and "ahhing" watching the progress of lizards on Animal Planet.

....I didn't know how to end this....I don't ever want to leave my children, but only really know how to live one way....which is all the way

As I held Sofia listening to this song, the lyrics began to make perfect sense for runaway fathers; how instead of running into another woman's arms to take away their pain after a divorce, they could run back to their children and take away theirs.

love I get so lost, sometimesdays pass and this emptiness fills my heartwhen I want to run awayI drive off in my carbut whichever way I goI come back to the place you are

all my instincts, they returnand the grand facade, so soon will burnwithout a noise, without my prideI reach out from the inside

in your eyesthe light the heatin your eyesI am completein your eyesI see the doorway to a thousand churchesin your eyesthe resolution of all the fruitless searchesin your eyesI see the light and the heatin your eyesoh, I want to be that completeI want to touch the lightthe heat I see in your eyes

love, I don't like to see so much painso much wasted and this moment keeps slipping awayI get so tired of working so hard for our survivalI look to the time with you to keep me awake and alive

and all my instincts, they returnand the grand facade, so soon will burnwithout a noise, without my prideI reach out from the inside

**This is all inner strength really is: reaching out from the inside, to do what is right, no matter how difficult, no matter what the cost. We can't take anything left in our hearts with us when we go. I am the way I am because I love my children and the world they live in, not because it's easy or I'm afraid of it.

I hope this reaches as many runaway fathers as possible. I hope they in turn reach out for their children. Many are waiting...and losing hope; in themselves, and in the world.

As I was thinking this, Sofia suddenly buried her head in my chest.....and without a noise, without my pride, I reached out from the inside......and cried.......a father's tears of love dripping down onto his daughter.

DANCING WITH MY BABY GIRL

Crystal, Sofia's older sister, asked if she could join us for Date Night With Daddy. We welcomed her with open arms